Yes, indeed Adobe products seem to be the default products for a majority of photographers, there are "must use this" choices for operating systems, cameras, social media platforms and a lot of things. Frankly, I rarely encounter photographers who have heard of Phase One or Capture One, and I think that's a big problem Capture One faces: it's hard to gain market share if nobody knows about your product, regardless of how good it is. At this point Adobe probably doesn't need to advertise (much) because their huge user base and media do it for them. I wonder how Capture One gets advertised other than to Phase One, Sony, and now Fuji users who get versions included with their cameras. But that's a different question than the big DAM comments I see in this and other threads.

I don't think that with Aperture it's fair to say things like "Apple didn't see a market for DAM (etc.), so they dropped it". Apple's revenue is huge, and at this point some pundits even wonder whether Apple will continue with computers: they're now seen more as a device and services vendor. For them, the relatively minor revenue stream from Aperture probably wasn't enough to hold their interest. They've discontinued a lot of popular, market leading programs over the years. Remember MacDraw, MacPaint, MacDraft, and so on? How about their big thrust into desktop publishing? Apple seems to build markets and then desert them when they're no longer of interest—for whatever reason.

As far as DAM goes, given that Capture One, Lightroom, Luminar, OnOne and probably others programs have DAMs built in, I'd suspect that there isn't sufficient demand for standalone DAM products anymore to justify continuing them. Further, given the number of vendors who seem interested in incorporating DAM into their post-processing programs, I'm inclined to think that at this point DAM is expected to be part of a good pp program—table stakes as it were. And as time goes on, I can't see Phase One being able to either continue with a so-so DAM module or discontinue it. If they really want Capture One to continue appealing to professionals and serious amateurs who need to be able to quickly find images that meet specific criteria, then it's important to have a useful catalog/search capability.

So regardless of what Apple did to Aperture years ago (which it seems brought Phase One a number of customers), and regardless of whatever else Apple or other vendors have done, Phase One made a decision (imo the right decision) to incorporate DAM into Capture One (I for one wouldn't have considered it without DAM), and just as they continue to improve C1's processing capabilities, I hope they listen to customers and improve the DAM capabilities beyond their current "just usable" state.

mattcohen wrote:This is a very helpful answer, I appreciate it. Unfortunately I have very extensive metadata, and getting rid of it would defeat the purpose (actually being able to search and export the relevant pictures) of a DAM.

I'd be embarrassed if I made something that was more limited (in any way) than five-year-old dead software.

I wouldn't like it either, but I don't work for Phase One and I don't have responsibility for this product.

You have a few options if you think its the metadata filter tool problem:1) Move Filter Tool to another tool tab. Use it only in collections of 5,000 -10,000 images or less. 2) Review your Metadata. The expensive part of your Metadata is not necessarily the part that's causing the problem. The kind of Metadata that seems to cause issues is longer strings that are different for every image.3) Raise a support ticket and see if you can make any progress there. It would be nice if you are successful, but past history is not encouraging.4) Find a better tool.

I've complained (and others have to) about performance issues for a long time. About 2 years ago, at the beginnning of Capture One 10, there were some considerable performance improvements. Since then other aspects have sped up some, but not the Filter Tool issue. I have a choice of staying with this product warts and all, or of finding another product, (likely with a different set of warts).

A relatively low impact solution would be a way to disable indexing of some Metadata fields. An index of a Metadata field with 15000 unique values provides no real value to the user, it just burns a lot of CPU and human time.

Eric Nepean wrote:A relatively low impact solution would be a way to disable indexing of some Metadata fields.

Using a tool such as DB Browser for SQLite (Windows) makes it possible, among other things, to create and drop indices to your hearts content. Drop the wrong indices, and retrieval performance will suffer.

Eric Nepean wrote: An index of a Metadata field with 15000 unique values provides no real value to the user,

Not universally true.

Eric Nepean wrote: it just burns a lot of CPU and human time.

Indices in general speed up retrievals by noticeable amounts, saving human time. They only cost at definition time, the time it takes to write like "CREATE INDEX ZKEYWORD_ZLEFT_INDEX ON ZKEYWORD (ZLEFT)", and at Insert and Deletes (not noticeable to users)

SFA wrote:Reading some comments on here from time to time there do seem to be some users who are happy with the performance.

Indeed that is true, but I believe the differences in performance originates in different usage patterns, more specifically in the use of keywording, which because of the database design I believe comes with severe penalties in Capture One.

Eric, every time I search the forum for help regarding the Mac version of CO, your name pops up. I cannot find a way of contacting you privately - perhaps this function is disabled in the forum. I thought I'd add you as a friend, but there seems to be a problem with that function: I think your name is in the forum member list two times. I just wanted to thank you for all the work you're doing answering questions in the forum. If you're interested in contacting me, I can provide my email address. Cheers, Francis.

Apple replaced both Aperture, its professional-level photography software, as well as iPhoto, its consumer-oriented photography software, with Photos. Compared with Aperture, Photos was more limited; compared with iPhoto, it was more advanced. I used iPhoto only sparingly and used Aperture regularly, but my impression was that Photos was closer to iPhoto than Aperture. Photos was supposed to improve its editing capabilities through its plugin architecture, but I've been largely unimpressed with it... and was somewhat surprised to see Capture One, which is very strong for photo editing, go the route of adding a plugin framework as well.

I stopped using Aperture a few years ago (no support for my current camera) and was limping along with Photos, so I can't speak exactly to the performance difference between Aperture and Capture One. But it's definitely surprising how Aperture's performance and features haven't yet been totally overshadowed by modern software.

People speaking about Apple ditching Aperture to Photos as an excuse for PhaseOne not improving CaptureOne are missing the point.

Apple first ditched Aperture because they wanted people to use Service-based (think iCloud) programs, that promote the use of both Apple-branded computer and smartphones. That increases revenue and loyalty.They have decided (and as an avid Aperture user, I regret it) to promote a software that pushes simplicity and takes control of managing the pictures. Hence their "automatic moments" organisation and also the use of IA to retrieve people but also whatever object you want to search. The recognition capabilities are still in the infancy, but that is their vision of the future.On top of that, and as mean to their global "halo" strategy, they're working hard to converge user experience on every device (computer, smartphone, tablet), and Photos is part of that.

So the point is that Apple didn't want you to put your iPhones pictures in Aperture anymore, and this was more important than the Aperture revenue on non-iphone users.

And by the way, Photos is very efficient in retrieving instantly your picture in a big database on different devices.

Coming back to the subject, there are no technical impossibility in building a better DAM for PhaseOne, even if Aperture history (early versions performance issues) suggests that it is not a simple job.

I believe the issue PhaseOne is faced with is : what the point of building a better DAM when the way of the future on the consumer market is going cloud, IA and multi-platform (mean: computer + tablet + smartphone), which is arguably not where PhaseOne can become leader.

The problem with thinking that way is that they are reducing themselves to a niche market of professional photographers that work mainly on a session based workflow, and don't care much about DAM management because they don't need it. And will become more and more challenged by the functionalities available on consumer apps.

I don't know enough about the rentability and metrics of PhaseOne to offer a definitive view, but my feeling is that if they don't improve significantly the DAM aspect of Capture One, it will become very difficult to justify for a 180€ a year recurring revenue, except for a pro niche market that will go diminishing.